


A Very Courfeyrac Thanksgiving

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Like the tiniest amount of angst compared to anything I normally write, Politics, Road Trips, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Dinner, Triumverate Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 04:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8650762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: “Can I join you for the celebration of the systemic annihilation of the Native American populations, a celebration worse than normal this year given everything happening at Standing Rock?” Enjolras asked.
As he had asked this all in a single breath, it took a long moment of Courfeyrac staring at him blankly before he worked out exactly what Enjolras was asking. “Are you asking to come to my parents’ for Thanksgiving?” he asked.
Enjolras scowled at him. “I’m pretty sure that’s what I said.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> For [@the-peoples-will](https://tmblr.co/mPzN1S91MRfdnOnTw6ZQWZQ), who requested a triumverate fic about their friendship with happy and warm things. And what could be happier or warmer than a Thanksgiving road trip with friends?
> 
> Usual disclaimer applies. A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all! Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos.

“Can I join you for the celebration of the systemic annihilation of the Native American populations, a celebration worse than normal this year given everything happening at Standing Rock?” Enjolras asked.

As he had asked this all in a single breath, it took a long moment of Courfeyrac staring at him blankly before he worked out exactly what Enjolras was asking. “Are you asking to come to my parents’ for Thanksgiving?” he asked.

Enjolras scowled at him. “I’m pretty sure that’s what I said.”

“Well, you know the de Courfeyrac’s are pretty relaxed about who comes to dinner,” Courfeyrac said easily, though he quickly added, “But I have one condition before I’ll agree: I want to know why you’re not going to _your_ parents’.”

Enjolras’s scowl deepened. “That’s none of your business.”

Courfeyrac sighed. “Enjolras, honey, you’ve been friends with me for long enough to know that _everything_ is my business.” He propped his chin on his hand and looked thoughtfully at Enjolras. “Combeferre’s coming, as he does every year, but his reason is _boring_ – his parents live too far away for him to get home to them when he only gets Thanksgiving and the day after off work. Blah, blah, not very exciting. But _you_ —” Courfeyrac fluttered his eyelashes at Enjolras. “I’m sure you have a reason. And I’m sure it’s a good one.”

For a moment, it looked like Enjolras might ignore him, or tell him that he didn’t want to come to Thanksgiving all that badly anyway, but then he sighed. “I got in a fight with my dad,” he said reluctantly.

Courfeyrac blinked. “Oh,” he said, clearly trying not to sound disappointing. “And not to be insensitive, but this is different than literally any other time you’ve spoken to your father…how?”

“Because it ended in him uninviting me,” Enjolras said. “Or, well, I kind of uninvited myself, I guess. I told him I didn’t want to eat dinner with anyone who would support the rise of fascism.”

“Ah, I see,” Courfeyrac said, nodding in understanding. “I should have guessed this had something to do with Trump.” He hesitated before asking, “Dare I ask what exactly your father said?”

Enjolras’s nostrils whitened in what Courfeyrac intimately recognized was blind rage. “He told me he voted for Trump. I didn’t need to hear anything else.”

Courfeyrac nodded again and tried to steer the conversation toward safer ground. “What about your mom?” he asked. “I know you were looking forward to seeing her.”

Enjolras just shrugged. “She voted for him, too. I know she did. She’s never done any thinking for herself, just following right in line with what that—” He cut himself off abruptly and took a deep breath before asking determinedly, “So can I come to Thanksgiving or not?”

“You can come,” Courfeyrac told him, grinning. “I mean, I’ll call my mom to make sure, but you know she won’t have a problem with it. This way she gets to coo over you and despair over how skinny you are. Besides, you know what this means!”

Courfeyrac suddenly sounded far too excited, and Enjolras glanced at him warily. “What does this mean?” he asked.

Courfeyrac beamed at him. “This means road trip!” Enjolras suddenly looked like he regretted asking to come, especially as Courfeyrac flung an arm over his shoulder and told him, “It’s gonna be _awesome_.”

“Sure,” said Enjolras, without enthusiasm. “Awesome.”

* * *

Mrs. de Courfeyrac hung up the phone, took a deep breath and turned to her husband, who was reading the sports section of the newspaper. “Guess who that was!” she said, her tone far too cheerful.

Mr. de Courfeyrac didn’t look up. “Hmm?” he grunted, as was customary for when his wife asked him a question that he almost certainly didn’t care about the answer to.

“Our son. He’s asked to bring another guest to Thanksgiving dinner.”

Now Mr. de Courfeyrac peered over the top of the paper. “Who?” he asked suspiciously.

Mrs. de Courfeyrac hesitated. “Enjolras.”

Blanching, Mr. de Courfeyrac set the paper down. “The same Enjolras who called my elderly aunt a fascist at the wedding this past summer?”

“The very same,” Mrs. de Courfeyrac said delicately. “He really is a very nice boy.”

Mr. de Courfeyrac pinched the bridge of his nose. “Give me the list of who we’ve invited,” he said, holding out his hand.

Mrs. de Courfeyrac frowned. “Whatever for?” she asked.

“I’m going to univite anyone who might pose a problem,” Mr. de Courfeyrac told her. Though his wife rolled her eyes, she gave him the list. After a long moment, Mr. de Courfeyrac sighed heavily. “Looks like it’s just going to be the five of us.”

“Nice and intimate,” Mrs. de Courfeyrac said brightly. “I’ll call the caterers.”

Mr. de Courfeyrac just grumbled and disappeared behind the sports section of the paper again.

* * *

The road trip – or “Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac’s Grand Adventure 2.0”, as Courfeyrac and Courfeyrac alone had taken to calling it – got off to an inauspicious start when all three showed up in front of Courfeyrac’s wearing the same scarf and drinking from identical coffee mugs.

“Didn’t I get you that scarf for Hanukah last year?” Enjolras asked Combeferre, puzzled.

Combeferre took a sip of his coffee. “Yeah, and I got it for Courfeyrac for Christmas.”

Courfeyrac shrugged. “And after Enjolras borrowed it that one time when it got so cold out and he didn’t even bring a jacket, I figured he could use one of his own, so I got it for him for his birthday.”

They all spent a moment looking at each other. “This is embarrassing,” Enjolras said finally. “One of us should take the scarf off.”

“Oh, right, because two of us wearing the same scarf looks less stupid than all three of us,” Combeferre said sarcastically.

Courfeyrac bounced on the balls of his feet and beamed at them. “None of us should take them all!” he said exuberantly. “Don’t you see? They’re now the official scarf of Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac’s—”

“Grand Adventure 2.0,” Enjolras and Combeferre finished in resigned unity.

Combeferre checked his watch. “Let’s get on the road,” he suggested. “We want to beat traffic, after all.” He glanced from Enjolras to Courfeyrac. “If anyone needs to pee, do it now.”

Neither said they had to pee, so all three piled in the car, with Combeferre driving. “Alright,” Combeferre said, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s go.”

Not even twenty minutes later, they had already stopped so that Combeferre could pee. “Isn’t this a pleasant change of pace,” Courfeyrac said delightedly to Enjolras, who just grinned and opened a bag of gummy worms.

When Combeferre got back to the car, Courfeyrac told him haughtily, “Thanks to that, you’ve temporarily lost your driving privileges. I’ll drive there, you can drive back.”

“You know, neither of you ever ask me to drive,” Enjolras remarked conversationally.

Combeferre and Courfeyrac exchanged glances. “That’s because we value our lives,” Courfeyrac said.

Enjolras scowled. “Are you calling me a bad driver?”

“Yes,” Combeferre said emphatically, while Courfeyrac hedged, “Bad is such a subjective word.”

Enjolras threw a gummy worm at Combeferre, who grinned and ate it.

Two hours later, as they were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, none of them were grinning. “We could play a game,” Combeferre suggested in a desperate attempt to keep their mood up.

“What game?” Enjolras asked, having already scrolled through every new post in Pantsuit Nation and feeling more than a little irritated.

Combeferre shrugged. “We could play I Spy.”

Courfeyrac threw a dirty look over his shoulder. “We are _not_ playing I Spy,” he said.

“Why not?” Combeferre asked, a little put out.

“Because you cheat.”

Combeferre looked startled. “How can I possibly cheat at I Spy?” he protested.

Courfeyrac looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Don’t even try to pull that with me,” he said. “Every time we play I Spy, you describe the characteristics of some obscure moth species, and then when I say that I don’t see it, you tell me that it’s already flown away. Every. Single. Time.”

“Well, moths are known for flying away,” Combeferre said weakly, but he was grinning.

Enjolras turned around to give Combeferre a scandalized look. “Cheater,” he whispered, also grinning.

Suddenly, traffic started moving again and Courfeyrac let out a whoop. “No need to worry about playing rigged games, boys, we’re on the move!”

Both Enjolras and Combeferre cheered, though Enjolras stopped abruptly, checking his phone, a frown creasing his forehead. He didn’t answer it and Courfeyrac glanced over at him. “Who was that?” he asked.

“No one,” Enjolras said, before sighing and telling him, “It was my mom.”

Combeferre leaned forward from the back seat. “You should talk to her,” he said gently. “Let her explain.”

“There’s no explanation she could offer that I would want to hear,” Enjolras said icily, turning to stare out the window, his shoulders hunched and his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Courfeyrac allowed Enjolras a whole half hour to sulk before he winked at Combeferre, who rolled his eyes but obediently changed the song on Courfeyrac’s iPhone. Courfeyrac reached over and blindly groped for Enjolras’s hand, settling for gripping Enjolras’s knee when he jerked his hand away. “I can show you the world,” he sang, glancing over at Enjolras and grinning, “Shining, shimmering, splendid. Tell me princess, now when did you last let your heart decide?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Watch the road, would you?” he commanded waspishly.

“I can open your eyes,” Courfeyrac continued, though he obediently turned back to the road. “Take you wonder by wonder. Over, sideways and under on a magic road trip ride.”

“There’s nothing magical about this,” Enjolras grumbled.

“A whole new world,” Courfeyrac crooned at a volume and pitch usually only used by howling dogs, “a new fantastic point of view. No one to tell us no—”

“Or that this movie is a gross stereotype of Middle Eastern cultures,” Enjolras muttered.

“Or where to go! Or say we’re only dreaming.”

Courfeyrac looked over at Enjolras expectantly as Jasmine’s verse started, and Enjolras shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “I’m not doing it.” Courfeyrac stuck his lower lip out in a ridiculous looking pout and Enjolras rolled his eyes. “No!” he said again, but he was helpless against Courfeyrac’s puppy dog face and after another moment, he sighed and joined in with the song. “But when I’m way up here, it’s crystal clear that now I’m in a whole new world with you.”

They sang the rest of the song together in approximately perfect harmony, and when they were done, Combeferre clapped politely from the back seat. “That was dumb,” Enjolras muttered, but he was smiling again and Courfeyrac smirked with smug satisfaction.

“Well, 1000 viewers on instagram don’t seem to think it was dumb,” Combeferre said mildly, and Enjolras whirled around.

“You put it on instagram?” he practically shrieked, trying to reach Combeferre to jokingly hit him, but Combeferre scooted out of reach in the backseat, wheezing from laughter.

Courfeyrac just shook his head good-naturedly. “Children, children,” he chided. “Don’t make me turn this car around.”

Enjolras turned back to the front and huffed a sigh, but he wasn’t really angry. “Hopefully it’ll get people to click on my instagram and see what important things related to the Cause I’ve highlighted on there,” he said.

“Or they’ll just look at the shirtless pictures of you on there,” Courfeyrac said.

Enjolras glared at him. “I don’t have shirtless pictures of myself on instagram.”

Combeferred cleared his throat. “What about those pictures of you in Hawaii at that conference?”

“That’s different!” Enjolras spluttered, turning red at the smirk Courfeyrac gave him. “I was on the beach!”

The rest of the car ride was mostly taken up by cheerful bickering, though there were two additional Disney sing-a-longs, with Enjolras insisting that Combeferre must feature in one so that he could also post it on instagram. But before long, they had arrived at the de Courfeyrac house, and Enjolras looked up at it, something like trepidation in his glance. “Don’t worry,” Courfeyrac assured him. “I’m sure my dad’s forgiven you by now.”

Enjolras scowled. “Forgiven me for what?” he asked as they all got out of the car and headed to the door.

“You know what you did,” Courfeyrac said blithely, ringing the doorbell.

After a moment, the door flew open and his mom pulled him into a hug. “Hi, Mom,” Courfeyrac, his voice muffled from being pressed against you.

“I’m so glad you’re all here,” Mrs. de Courfeyrac told them, beaming, and her eyes lit up when she looked at Enjolras. “Especially you, dear. I can see you’re still not eating as often as you’re supposed to.”

Enjolras blushed and muttered an excuse as Mr. de Courfeyrac joined them at the door, a piece of paper in hand. “Here,” he said gruffly, handing it to Enjolras. “To forestall any possible controversy.”

Enjolras glanced down at it, frowning, but after a moment, grinned and stepped forward to hug Mr. de Courfeyrac, who laughed. “What is it?” Combeferre asked, curious.

“Printed confirmation of my maximum individual donation to Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Mr. de Courfeyrac told him, and Courfeyrac crowed with laughter.

“Look at my dad with the receipts!” he cheered, following his parents into the house.

Combeferre and Enjolras followed further behind, with Enjolras checking his phone again. “Your mom again?” Combeferre asked.

Enjolras shook his head. “No, a snapchat from my little cousin, of all people. She’s actually at my parents’, poor kid.”

He played the snap and seemed to freeze in place, staring at it in shock. “What?” Combeferre asked sharply. “Is everything ok?”

With almost trembling fingers, Enjolras played the snap again, and this time screenshot it, pulling it up to show Combeferre. It was a rainbow flag “I’m With Her” button that Enjolras’s cousin had captured, “found this in ur moms drawer”, along with a series of emoijis that made little sense to anyone but a thirteen-year-old.

Combeferre looked up at Enjolras. “I told you that you should have called her,” he said quietly, but his smile was gentle.

“I will,” Enjolras said, also managing a small smile. “After dinner. I promise.”

“Are you boys coming?” Mrs. de Courfeyrac called. “We timed dinner perfectly so that it’d be ready when you got here.”

“Coming!” Enjolras and Combeferre chimed in unison.

When they had all gathered around the table, before sitting down, Mr. de Courfeyrac raised his glass of wine. “I know it’s a bit of a corny tradition, but I think it’s nice if we go around the table and share what we’re most thankful for.” He smiled at Combeferre and Enjolras on his left and Courfeyrac on his right before looking down at his wife on the far end. “I know it’s been a tumultuous time for the country, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of where we’re going, but I’m still thankful that this year, I had the opportunity to go with my amazingly intelligent and beautiful wife of thirty-five years to cast our ballots for the first major party female candidate for president of the United States.”

He looked at Combeferre, who smiled slightly. “I’m thankful for friendship,” he said, glancing from Enjolras to Courfeyrac, “and for always feeling like I have a place to belong.”

Enjolras took a long moment before saying what he was thankful for, staring at the centerpiece instead of making eye contact as he said, in a quieter voice than normal, “I’m thankful for family, especially the family that you make for yourself, and the family that opens itself up to grow with new members.”

He aimed the last part at Mrs. de Courfeyrac, who smiled at him before saying simply, “I am thankful for a full house and guests with full hearts.”

Courfeyrac cleared his throat. “And I am thankful,” he said loudly, “for audio/video recording capabilities on my phone because I’m going to post this sap-fest online and make it go hashtag viral.”

Enjolras and Combeferre rolled their eyes and admonished in unison, “Courf!”

Courfeyrac sighed and put his phone down. “Fine,” he grumbled before looking around the table. “What I’m most thankful for is everyone here, and for the reminder that no matter how much shit there is in the world—” (“Language!” Mrs. de Courfeyrac chided.) “—no matter what happens and what battles we will face, I’ve got the best friends and the best family in the whole world, and that’s enough to sustain my hope against all odds.”

“Hear, hear,” Mr. de Courfeyrac said, raising his wine glass, and they all toasted.

“Enough of this crap,” Courfeyrac said once they were all seated. “Let’s eat.”

Everyone laughed and obediently dug in.


End file.
